Mortified
by Grey L. Bloom
Summary: Meet Illa, the Girl Who Knows The Golden Rule. Meet Life, who isn't a thunderstorm in trousers. And meet Mort, who isn't exactly dead...
1. Like Taxes, But It Only Comes Twice

A/N: Something old I found. Enjoy?  
***  
Chapter 1 - Like Taxes, But It Only Comes Twice  
  
***  
  
"Do you see him?"  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Death."  
  
***  
  
Walk. Take a step, shift the weight, take another step. Move forward. Always moving forward.  
  
He walked up the road that, despite its every appearance, did NOT lead to Ankh-Morpork. The city sprawled in front of him, like something alive and most likely very slimy.  
  
He didn't think about much.  
  
He just KNEW.  
  
***  
  
Sergeant Colon very carefully guarded the main gate. You never knew when some hooligan would try to make off with a historical landmark.  
  
He lit a cigarette with much precision and ceremony. It was the first light-up of the night, and very important.  
  
The match skittered out of his fingers.  
  
"Hey, you," he called out, into the night. "Who are you, boy?"  
  
The young man paused in the gate, the night breeze ruffling his red hair eerily. He looked up at Sergeant Colon with brown-blue eyes.  
  
"My name is Mort," he said calmly, his voice like ticking of clocks, the pouring of sand, the dripping of water, the passage of time. "My name is Mort, not Boy."  
  
Sergeant Colon swallowed his cigarette. 


	2. A Matter Of Life And DEATH

Chapter 2 - A Matter Of Life And DEATH  
  
***  
  
A long time ago, in a land far, far away...  
  
Well, not so long ago. Just a month, actually. And the place was only a few lives skip to the left, if you left the back way and didn't knock over the trash cans.   
  
But it wasn't now. And it wasn't here. It was... there.  
  
Her name was Illa. And the wheels in her head had just begun to turn. She knows the golden rule... Gods cannot exist without belief. And once belief begins, they cannot help but exist.  
  
Illa was about to destroy the world.  
  
***  
  
In a white world on the edge of the universe, the Woman let go of Her teacup, which disappeared with a POP before it could touch Her white dress. She stood carefully, with much precision, much like the way She did everything. Her business was serious business.  
  
She appeared, at first, to be a woman. A woman with capital letters and flashing pink signs and perhaps a few neon flashes of a female's rear end wiggling back and forth.  
  
Clean that up right now, young man.  
  
Her dress was not, as it were, revealing. She just MOVED as if it was, with the rock-hard knowledge that underneath Her clothing, She was naked. She had long, fluffy brown hair, blue eyes, and a perfect complexion.*  
  
The Woman snapped Her fingers. A Lifetimer appeared, hovering in the air until She grasped it. The sand looked old and worn, but somehow unused. The writing at the top was worn off.  
  
Life smiled benevolently at it, running Her fingers over the inscription. It glowed with an inner light, burning the word back...  
  
"Go, Mort," She whispered to the Lifetimer, as though She were speaking to a small child. "You have your entire life ahead of you. Go where the winds take you."  
  
The sand moved upward through the cinched glass in a gravity-defying rush, and She smiled.  
  
***  
  
Death glanced up at the noise.  
  
SQUEAK? asked the Death of Rats.  
  
I'M NOT SURE, he answered, and stood up. PROBABLY NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT. He paused. PROBABLY SOMETHING IS TO WORRY ABOUT, ACTUALLY.  
  
Death was like an old engineer, who could hear if something went wrong in his engine. Something was wrong in the world, one note suddenly out of tune, changing key. Death sighed and sat down, since he didn't know a thing about music.  
  
One change of key changes the symphony.  
  
_______________  
*Of course. 


	3. Get A Life

Chapter 3 - Get A Life  
  
***  
  
"Give it back!"  
  
"Would you like your jar of lard, Fat Girl?"  
  
"Shut up and give it back!"  
  
The boy giggled, bouncing the jar from palm to palm, dodging the smaller girl's desperate attempts to retrieve it. She snarled at him and lunged at his face, fingers clawed.  
  
A hand came down on the boy's head, and they both froze.  
  
"What's going on here, Jim?" Miss Susan said.  
  
Jim's mouth dropped open. "I..." He stared at the small glass jar in his hand. "Here," he grunted, dropping it into the girl's waiting hand.   
  
"THANK you," she grumbled, snatching it out of the air and secreting it somewhere about her person.  
  
"What do you say, Jim?"  
  
"'M sorry..." he mumbled.  
  
"What are you sorry for?"  
  
"F'r t'k'n' her jar..."  
  
"Whose jar was it?"  
  
"Hers..."  
  
"Should you have taken it?"  
  
"No..."  
  
Miss Susan smiled grimly. "Now. What do you say, Jim?"  
  
"'M s'rry f'r t'k'n' y'r jar what wiz y'rs an' I shouldn't've t'k'n' it b'cuz 'tisnt m'n, cuz 't's y'rs, cuz..." He paused, at a loss. "Cuz... cuz... cuz..."  
  
Miss Susan gritted her teeth and patted him on the shoulder three times, very firmly. "That's okay, enough, enough, Jim."  
  
"Cuz..."  
  
"JIM..." He shut up. "Good. Now. Illa, what do you say?"  
  
"I forgive you for taking MY BLOODY JAR THAT IS VERY SECRET AND SPECIAL AND MIIINE," Illa said, very calmly. Then she hit Jim in a very calm way. Then he said "Cuz... ow." Then she kicked him.  
  
Miss Susan led them to their seats, where they would be read a story, pausing at Illa. Illa was a girl who needed someone. The side of Susan that was not Miss Susan felt the... the HOLE as clearly as though Illa had no head.   
  
The girl sat, and took the jar out of her pocket. Susan watched her inconspicuously while "looking for a book to read". Illa slowly turned the lid, reached inside, and pulled out... some white fabric.  
  
Susan wondered...  
  
***  
  
Illa listened to the story with only one ear, just enough to call up any key points if asked. With the rest of her brain she concentrated on her little piece of white fabric, which she was pulling and gathering together in a very... careful... way. She shook the string out of the bottom of the jar, and wound it around the fabric slowly, sticking her tongue out of the corner of her mouth.  
  
It began to resemble a person.  
  
"'Hello, Illa,'" the small girl murmured to herself in a low, soft voice, so like and unlike her own. She stared, unseeing, at the handmade doll on her lap. "'Let me give you a different life. It will be so... easy.'"  
  
***  
  
In a white world on the edge of the universe... 


	4. As A Door Nail

Chapter 4 - As A Door Nail  
  
***  
  
Gaspode The Wonder Dog limped through the streets of Ankh-Morpork, snuffling and complaining quietly to himself. His nose was unrivalled; it could smell things three miles away, it could sense the presence of a promising clod of dirt at fifty-four paces, it could tell you who was in town, who had fathered who, and whether or not the postman's leg was a promising she-dog or not.  
  
Most often not.  
  
But right now, Gaspode was irritable, because he could smell something that he couldn't recognize. Living death, or something. Huh. Bugger.  
  
His progress was stopped by a boot.  
  
This is not, in fact, very surprising, considering that when you are a mangy old dog on the streets of Ankh-Morpork you could, if you WORE boots, be the best (well, okay, MOST) shod dog in the world.  
  
But this boot was occupied. And it was occupied by the Scent.  
  
Gaspode looked up into brown-blue eyes.  
  
"Why hello there," Mort said, and smiled.  
  
Gaspode proceeded to pee himself.  
  
***  
  
Illa went to bed with white linens. A square was torn out of the underside of her white comforter, where the down was leaking out. Illa hoped her mother wouldn't notice the feathers between her toes every morning.  
  
As she lay between the sheets, she mused about... nothing much. And when she dreamed, she dreamed about long legs and white dresses and long, fluffy brown hair.  
  
***  
  
"Put me down, please," Gaspode squeaked, trembling, all four legs up in the air.  
  
"Hmmm?" murmured Mort, turning left into a street he didn't try to recognize.  
  
"Um, I would, er, really like to, say, y'know, walk on my own, please," Gaspode whimpered.  
  
"Well, that is a lofty goal," murmured Mort, walking past a dark alleyway. Pieces of shadow separated from the whole and began to follow them.  
  
Gaspode whimpered. His life had been going we- it had been doing all ri- it hadn't been too horrendously awful until this... this... -thing- came along. It didn't smell alive, and it it didn't smell dead, and it didn't smell like a zombie or a werewolf or a vampire. Gaspode knew what THEY smelled like. Dust or embalming fluid or shampoo, ("Fore A Flufye Cote"), normally. But this was like... like... a machine charged with life, a golem with a flesh and blood shell.  
  
Bugger. Getting philosophical again. Good Doggie. Thou Shalt Have A Bone. Shut up.  
  
***  
  
In a white world on the edge of the universe, Life stirred her white tea with a white spoon, making a white 'clinkaclinka' sort of noise. She knew what she should do next, of course. All of those poor souls that mere chance had given a horrible life. She could save them, make them perfect, make them... new again.  
  
Life brushed her beautiful brown hair away from a white temple, set down her teacup, and plucked a Lifetimer out of the air.  
  
Even Anthropomorphic Personifications have priorities.  
  
***  
  
Illa woke up.  
  
She swung her feet out from under eiderdown, shivered as her toes touched the wooden floor, tiptoed quickly to the rug in front of her wardrobe. Illa knew that waking up meant morning, and morning meant school, and school meant Jim.  
  
Her hand closed around the small jar. 


	5. Life's A Bitch

Chapter 5 - Life's A Bitch  
***  
  
Miss Susan set the book on her desk and sat down. She flipped through the pages until it fell onto the one that they had stopped on yesterday.  
  
"Comparative Philosophy, Chapter Twelve: What Is Life?" she said to her class of second-graders. "According to Xenoists-"  
  
Bobby raised his hand.  
  
Miss Susan sighed, and closed her eyes. "Yes, Bobby?"  
  
"My dad says that life's a bi-"  
  
"Thank you, Bobby," she cut in quickly, smiling a small, grim smile. "Now is not the time, unfortunately. Yes, Illa?"  
  
"Bobby's dad is wrong," the little girl said quietly, eyes burning in her chubby face. "Life is nice. Life gives you what you need. Life gives you whatever you ask for, if you ask nicely."  
  
Miss Susan didn't stare at Illa. She didn't feel a shock or a chill or icicles creeping down her spine. And she didn't, didn't, gasp in horror.  
  
Miss Susan was busy being Miss Susan, Schoolteacher, and Miss Susan Schoolteacher was firmly jumping up and down on what Susan, Death's Granddaughter, had to say. Which was mainly foul language, so that was all right.  
  
"Interesting, Illa," Miss Susan said, her bun as tight as a very tight thing. "You're saying that if we work hard enough we can have whatever we want?"  
  
Illa slumped in her chair a bit, her dinghy black hair looking almost brown in the light. "Sure," Illa said, and stopped paying attention.  
  
***  
  
There's a place where great musicians go. It has music, GOOD music, light salads, dark mysterious poetry readings, tea rooms painted an angst-filled red. You can't find it in Ankh-Morpork, because great musicians don't live in Ankh-Morpork, even if they're from Ankh-Morpork. It isn't in Ephebe, because it would be full of philosophers before you could say "give me a towel". It isn't in Lancre, because, I mean, be reasonable: who wants to go to Lancre? It isn't in Quirm, either. Other things are.   
  
However, this story isn't about where musicians go or what's in Quirm. It's about Life, and Death, and other things.  
  
It's also about a dog...  
  
***  
  
Gaspode wheezed. "Pick me up again, wonder boy," he managed. "My Licky End is acting up."  
  
Mort stooped mechanically, picked up the small mutt, and continued walking. "Licky End can only be contracted by pregnant sheep," he said.  
  
"I know," Gaspode replied miserably. "By the way, did you know that we're being-"  
  
"Hullo, friend. Talkin' ter yerself?"  
  
"Oh, gods," Gaspode groaned.   
  
They were big. There were three of them. There were three big men. Three really big men. Big men. We're talking three huge men here. Big. Three of them. Big men.  
  
"Why hello, gentlemen," Mort said sweetly. "What brings you here?"  
  
Bugger.  
  
***  
  
Miss Susan blinked, her mouth open. Her stomach lurched in that eye-crossing way. Her knees twitched.  
  
Her class stared at her expectantly as the skin on her knuckles turned red and peeled a bit.  
  
"I'm sorry," Susan said finally, her voice hoarse. "I'll be right back." And ran.  
  
Illa sat in her chair, and blinked her blue eyes that were supposed to be green. "How odd," she said lightly, and laughed a laugh like bells.  
  
***  
  
"That was interesting how you kneed him in the head after he kicked you in the stomach," Gaspode said, staring at the wall from a very close distance. "And I've never seen anyone punch someone that hard before."  
  
"Now you have!" said Mort lightly, picking Gaspode up again.  
  
"Hurf," said Gaspode.  
  
***  
  
Susan leaned against the wall, panting. A few other teachers passed her, stared at her, and then huddled closer together.  
  
She sucked on her knuckles, willing them to stop burning. Miss Susan had finally shut up, allowing Susan to comprehend what was going on. Damn. Damn, damn, damn and blast.  
  
Susan snapped her fingers, wincing.  
  
***  
  
Life, in her white world, laughed a laugh like bells. 


	6. And Life, A Fury Slinging Flame

Chapter 6 - "And Life, A Fury Slinging Flame"  
***  
  
The world stopped for almost everyone.  
  
"HERE!" Susan screamed. "NOW!"  
  
Death appeared in front of her expectantly. WHAT DO YOU WANT? he asked calmly. AND DID YOU REALLY NEED TO SHOUT? IT ECHOES WHEN YOU DO THAT.  
  
Susan's face was drawn and skeletal. "WHAT IS GOING ON?" she hissed, using the voice automatically.  
  
WELL, YOU SEE, SOUND MOVES IN WAVES, AND WHEN IT ENTERS MY-  
  
"NOT the echoes," she sighed, stuffing the voice back down her throat. "This!"  
  
Death stared at her curled fist. YOUR FINGERS ARE RED. He glanced at her, a tad suspiciously. THIS ISN'T GOING TO BE A 'KISS IT MAKE IT BETTER' MOMENT, IS IT?  
  
"Your wife is a big hippo!" Susan said. "No, no, no. It is NOT going to be a 'kiss it make it better' moment. My knuckles are red, as though I've punched someone in the jaw!"  
  
THAT WASN'T VERY NICE. WHO DID YOU PUNCH?  
  
"I didn't punch anybody! That's the point! It's like... someone else's problems are being routed through me! Just a second ago I felt as though someone kicked me in the stomach, and then my knee twitched. It's as though I... I... I..."  
  
Death stared at her, grinning, although it wasn't as if he had a choice. He reached a hand out and plucked a Lifetimer absentmindedly out of the air, using his robe to hide it from her. HMMM, he said.  
  
"What is it?" she said anxiously.  
  
YOUR SAND IS FLOWING FASTER THAN IT SHOULD BE, BUT THE SAND IN THE TOP BULB IS GOING DOWN AT THE NORMAL RATE OF SPEED.  
  
"That's scientifically impossible!"  
  
WHO EVER SAID LIFE WAS A SCIENCE?  
  
Susan glowered. "So someone's using my life, but I'm not actually losing anything?"  
  
SO IT APPEARS. IT IS STRANGE, THOUGH...  
  
"What?"  
  
NORMALLY WHEN LIFE IS BORROWED, IT IS LENT OUT WILLINGLY. YOU, OBVIOUSLY, HAVE NO RECOLLECTION OF GIVING ANYONE YOUR SECONDS.  
  
"You make it sound as though life is a side of ham."  
  
INTERESTING METAPHOR. I WILL HAVE TO LOOK INTO THAT. WHERE CAN A SIDE OF HAM BE LOCATED?  
  
"Ham is not the issue! Could you keep your mind on the subject for FIVE MINUTES, please? Honestly, I might as well be teaching class. It couldn't possibly be the Auditors, could it? If they were controlling my life they'd have me run about killing everyone."  
  
SOMEHOW I DOUBT THEY WOULD COME UP WITH SOMETHING SO IMAGINATIVE.  
  
"Not them, then. Who?"  
  
THE HAM?  
  
"You're not helping."  
  
I HAD NO IDEA ANYTHING WAS WRONG UNTIL YOU MENTIONED IT. HOW SHOULD I KNOW?  
  
"You're Death! You're supposed to know everything!"  
  
IS THAT A SILVER STAR IN YOUR HAND?  
  
Susan looked down. It was, indeed, a silver star. She had gotten it out a while before as a motivational tool in an emergency. "Yes?" she said suspiciously.  
  
MAY I HAVE IT?  
  
"Why?"  
  
IT'S... PRETTY. NICE AND SHINY.  
  
Susan took a step backward. "What is WRONG with you? You've been getting distracted thoughout our entire conversation."  
  
I... WHAT WERE WE TALKING ABOUT?  
  
"Life! Death! My knuckles! The sand! A side of ham, for some reason!"  
  
AH... YES. I'M SORRY, IT MUST HAVE SLIPPED MY MIND.  
  
Susan stared into her grandfather's black holes of eyes, with their blue pinpoints of light. They almost looked brown, but Susan know that couldn't be the case.  
  
***  
  
Illa sat sleeping in her chair, a skill that many school-aged children learn. She also dreamed a dream about death.  
  
"What about Death?" Life asked inside her head, stroking her subconcious like a mother stroking her child's hair.  
  
"Won't he notice?" Illa murmured sleepily. Life sat in her mind like a thick warm fog. "About my life, I mean."  
  
"Of course, not, darling. I've made sure he won't notice."  
  
"How did you do that?"  
  
"Everyone has a life, darling, even Death. I just made so that whenever he thinks about it he thinks of something else. Quite easy, really, if you think about it."  
  
"And Miss Susan? She just ran out. I felt you on her."  
  
Life paused. "An experiment," She said, after a moment. "I wanted to make sure everything would work as I wanted it before I tried anything on you, dear. I couldn't bear to hurt you in any way."  
  
"Oh," Illa said, and stopped being able to think. 


End file.
